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"Events will determine your career whether you plan for them or not" and innovation is the key to dealing with the unknown, said William K. Reilly in his keynote speech to a sold-out audience attending Harvard Business School's recent annual Conference on Social Enterprise.
Reilly's career spans from serving on President Nixon's Council on Environmental Quality to head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush, and includes time spent in the nonprofit world as president of the Conservation Foundation and president (and now Chairman) of the World Wildlife Fund. Being able to innovate on the spot, think radically, and above all maintain a sense of humor are the cornerstones of a varied career that includes work in politics, nonprofits, and now the public sector, he said.
"My career path was not a straight line," joked Reilly, as he urged audience members to broaden their outlook and put their skills to use in ways they might not have considered.
Innovate, innovate
Reilly exhorted the audience to look outside the traditional business world and see where else they might make a difference. In particular, look to nongovernmental organizations, he said, since there are opportunities there to be particularly constructive and effective. Based on his international experiences, added Reilly, it is often the NGOs that get the highest amount of cooperation: They are often the most respected American organizations abroad, and thus a strong vehicle for change.
Pointing to his work at the World Wildlife Fund, Reilly described his innovative "debt for nature" trade plan, which was later grown into a larger program under George Bush. Under this plan several Latin American countries were able to have some of their debts forgiven if they invested this money internally on environmental reform. This proved crucial for cash-strapped nations that were heading toward environmental disasters based on their need to pump money into their own economies.
| Leave the good guys alone—give them more autonomy. |
| —William K. Reilly |
Buying back pollution rights was another radical idea of Reilly's. This controversial policy of allowing companies to pay for the right to pollute up to but not past a certain agreed-upon level was met with skepticism and outright concern by environmentalists and others, but what made it salable was the Environmental Defense Fund's advocacy of the plan as cost-effective and high-impact. The lesson, argued Reilly, is that taking risks and staring down adversity can lead to radical but effective ideas.
Expect the difficult
Reilly went on to describe some of the career-shaping events that happened during his EPA tenure. He was there for the Alar apple scare (when it was determined that many growers used this apple-ripening pesticide that was found to cause cancer in rats), and he was there for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Exxon spill was an unfortunate example of the "what if" scenario coming true. He recalled being told that there was a one-in-one-thousand chance of a spill like that happening in that area. "Well, the Valdez made the 877th trip through that region," he noted.
Transform the culture
Being comfortable with initiating change, especially when it comes to changing culture, is crucial to making a difference, urged Reilly as he described other milestones in his career. One thing he learned, he said, was to "leave the good guys alone more—give them more autonomy," and spend more energy on the bad guys—a kind of choose-your-battles-carefully philosophy. This was a shift in focus, he said, that underscored that it was "time to recognize the reality" that most people, and most businesses too, are interested in maintaining and strengthening clean air acts.
Mix it up
In closing, Reilly added that trying new things has been energizing for him, and he strongly urged the audience to "mix it up." Citing his third career—Reilly now works in private equity finance raising money to invest in developing countries' water projects—he described the feeling of not being the expert. "It's a very humbling experience to go back into business and find that twenty-six year olds know more than you do," he said. But for him it is this hint of the unknown that makes it challenging and fun.